and here and there was an ancient village which to all appearances might
have been standing quite the same when the Conqueror landed in Britain.
Oftentimes the byways were wide enough for only one vehicle, but were
slightly broadened in places to afford opportunity for passing. Many of
the crossings lacked the familiar sign-boards, and the winding byways,
with nothing but the map for a guide, were often confusing, and sharp
turns between high hedges made careful driving necessary. At times we
passed between avenues of tall trees and again unexpectedly dropped into
some quiet village nestling in the Dorset hills. One of the quaintest of
these, not even mentioned in Baedeker, is Cerne Abbas, a straggling
village through which the road twisted along--a little old-world
community, seemingly severed from modern conditions by centuries. It
rather lacked the cozy picturesqueness of many English villages. It
seemed to us that it wanted much of the bloom and shrubbery. Everywhere
were the gray stone houses with thatched roofs, sagging walls and odd
little windows with square or diamond-shaped panes set in iron
casements. Nowhere was there a structure that had the slightest taint of
newness. The place is quite unique. I do not recall another village that
impressed us in just the same way. Our car seemed strangely out of place
as it cautiously followed the crooked main street of the town, and the
attention bestowed on it by the smaller natives indicated that a motor
was not a common sight in Cerne Abbas. Indeed, we should have missed it
ourselves had we not wandered from the main road into a narrow lane that
led to the village. While we much enjoyed our day in the Dorset byways,
our progress had necessarily been slow.

In Yeovil, we found an old English town apparently without any important
history, but a prosperous center for a rich farming country. The place
is neat and clean and has a beautifully kept public park--a feature of
which the average English town appears more appreciative than the small